Category: Culture

(New York Jewish Week) — Jewish New York was once defined by pushcarts and peddlers; immigrants arriving through Ellis Island; densely packed kosher restaurants; lively Yiddish theater and daily newspapers in Yiddish and Ladino.  Those days are long gone — but that period is just some of the Jewish history captured in documents and ephemera […]

((JR)) – More than 1,200 Jewish Hollywood creatives have signed onto a statement rejecting the speech criticizing Israel by “The Zone of Interest” director Jonathan Glazer at this month’s Academy Awards. The signatories include “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel” writer Amy Sherman-Palladino, horror director Eli Roth and actress Jennifer Jason Leigh, as well as several show-business […]

((JR)) — Washington Monthly, a center-left magazine, has published an essay by an Israeli writer and translator that was retracted last week from the progressive literary journal Guernica after that magazine’s editors and co-publisher accused it of being an “apologia for Zionism.” Joanna Chen’s “From the Edges of a Broken World” went up on the […]

((JR)) — A superhero who saves the day; the return of a beloved multi-generational family of Jewish bears; a budding young nonbinary scientist who’s an heir to Frankenstein and a folk-style Ethiopian tale are among the stars of the new Passover children’s books published in 2024. The titles come from new entrants to the Jewish […]

((JR)) — A Jewish executive producer of the Oscar-winning Holocaust drama “The Zone of Interest” said he disagreed with director Jonathan Glazer’s speech at the Academy Awards ceremony criticizing Israel, while the Auschwitz Memorial issued a statement in its defense. They were the latest reactions in what has become a prolonged firestorm over Glazer’s remarks […]

(New York Jewish Week) – Purim begins on the evening of Saturday, March 23, and Jews across New York City aren’t wasting the opportunity to party all weekend long.  The festive holiday celebrates the triumph of the Jewish people in the Persian city of Shushan over Haman, the King Ahasuerus’ evil advisor who had made […]

(New York Jewish Week) — Walking tall across the black stage of the East Village’s Theater for the New City, Kalamandalam John makes a regal Pharaoh, with the bearing of a dancer.  That’s because John is a master of Kathakali, a traditional Indian dance form. He is in New York City to star in “Pharaoh,” […]

Spoilers ahead for “Part Nine” of “Masters of the Air” on Apple TV+. ((JR)) — When Lieutenant Colonel Robert Rosenthal’s B-17 bomber aircraft exploded during his final World War II combat mission on Feb. 3, 1945, he found himself in the middle of a battlefield of dueling Russian and German soldiers. Rosenthal was recovered by […]

(New York Jewish Week) — Attention subway riders: A poem by the Jewish Ukrainian-American poet Ilya Kaminsky has been featured on New York City’s trains recently.  “Lullaby,” about a parent watching their daughter while she sleeps, shares space with advertisements and public service announcements as part of the Metropolitan Transit Authority’s “Poetry in Motion” series. […]

((JR)) – In the wake of the Oscars, Hollywood has been treated to a rare spectacle: Jewish communal leaders attacking the Jewish director of an award-winning Holocaust movie. The Anti-Defamation League and an organization representing Holocaust survivors are among those now angry with Jonathan Glazer, the British Jewish filmmaker behind the widely acclaimed drama “The […]